East Carolina University
Graded against the actual result across 12 races (from 22 polls, through 2024).
Head-to-head vs VotePredictor Elections
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 12 races East Carolina University actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what VotePredictor Elections predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| East Carolina University | 3.16 | 75% |
| VotePredictor Elections | 2.87 | 83% |
VotePredictor Elections aggregates all the pollsters, so it's expected to beat any single one on margin — that's the value of averaging. The honest comparison among forecasters is on the combined board.
Every race (12)
Each race East Carolina University polled, scored on its final poll — the call right before the vote — against the actual Dem−Rep result. Click a race for its full detail.
| Race | Their call | Result | Miss | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 NC Governor | D+15.7 | D+14.8 | 0.9 | ✓ |
| 2024 GA President | R+0.4 | R+2.2 | 1.8 | ✓ |
| 2024 NC President | R+2.0 | R+3.2 | 1.2 | ✓ |
| 2024 SC President | R+13.1 | R+17.9 | 4.8 | ✓ |
| 2022 GA Governor | R+8.0 | R+7.5 | 0.5 | ✓ |
| 2022 GA Senate | EVEN | D+1.0 | 1.0 | ✗ |
| 2022 NC Senate | R+4.9 | R+3.2 | 1.7 | ✓ |
| 2020 NC Governor | D+11.0 | D+4.5 | 6.5 | ✓ |
| 2020 NC President | D+2.7 | R+1.3 | 4.1 | ✗ |
| 2020 SC President | R+7.7 | R+11.7 | 4.0 | ✓ |
| 2020 NC Senate | D+1.5 | R+1.7 | 3.3 | ✗ |
| 2020 SC Senate | R+1.8 | R+10.3 | 8.4 | ✓ |
Accuracy by time to election
Lower is better. Time to election runs right (election week) to left (~2 months out).
By the numbers
| Time to election | Polls | Avg miss | vs field | Called right |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 wk | 12 | 4.18 | -0.88 | 67% |
| 3–6 wk | 6 | 3.29 | -2.41 | 83% |
vs field is this pollster's average miss minus all pollsters' at the same lead time — green beats the field, redtrails it. Our historical polls reach ~2 months out; earlier polling isn't in the record.
Track record by cycle — getting better?
| Year | Polls | Avg miss | Lean (house effect) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 11 | 5.2 | D+5.2 |
| 2022 | 7 | 1.1 | R+0.6 |
| 2024 | 4 | 2.2 | D+2.2 |
Do we credit a pollster for fixing its bias? Each cycle, the model re-estimates every pollster's lean from all its earlier polls (walk-forward) and subtracts it before using the poll. We tested weighting recent cycles more — it doesn't help: a pollster's lean in one cycle barely predicts the next (correlation 0.28), so the swings above are mostly noise, and averaging over more history beats chasing the latest cycle. The all-time estimate we use came out within ~0.5% of the best option.